Читать книгу The Great Revival of the Eighteenth Century: with a supplemental chapter on the revival in America онлайн

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Such was the state of England, when, as we must think, by the special providence of God, the voices were heard crying in the wilderness. From the earlier years of the last century they continued sounding with such clearness and strength, from the centre to the remotest corners of the kingdom; from, the coasts, where the Cornish wrecker pursued his strange craft of crime, along all the highways and hedges, where rudeness and violence of every description made their occasions for theft, outrage, and cruelty, until the whole English nation became, as if instinctively, alive with a new-born soul, and not in vision, but in reality, something was beheld like that seen by the prophet in the valley of vision—dry bones clothed with flesh, and standing up “an exceeding great army,” no longer on the side of corruption and death, but ready with song and speech, and consistent living, to take their place on the side of the Lord.

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In the history of the circumstances which brought about the Great Revival, we must not fail to notice those which were in action even before the great apostles of the Revival appeared. We have already given what may almost be called a silhouette of society, an outline, for the most part, all dark; and yet in the same period there were relieving tints, just as sometimes, upon a silhouette-portrait, you have seen an attempt to throw in some resemblance to the features by a touch of gold.